Posted By A.Dennis Hi Gary. The short answer is no. People more and more are looking for the emergency services to protect them. Rather than protect themselves. In the case of Jourdon. Where were the parents? In the case of Maddie McCann. Where were the parents? To be honest, in both case i would like to see them in the dock for Gross Negligence Manslaughter. Harsh, but some people need a wake up call. As for Charles de Menenzes when cops ask you to stop, do it. And as for the article. Show me a journalist i'll show you a health and safety liability. Out of the wrong side of bed this morning. A

Posted By Mitch I think the reaction, to the article, demonstrated by the title of this thread is in the same vein as the author of the article. The actual wording is "We now need to exempt police and fire operations from health and safety legislation in certain circumstances" I emphasise certain circumstances and considering some of the points raised yes I personally would agree exemption in certain circumstances could be warranted.

Posted By Rich T It frustrates me to see so many column inches and seemingly hours of on-air time spent vilifying those two unfortunate PCSO's. They were only following the guidelines/advice/procedures that competent Police health and safety advisors had provided them with. If one of our profession had issued specific advice not to enter a confined space to effect a rescue due to a real danger of death, but instead to raise the alarm - would we not expect our instructions to be followed? If ignored what degree of contributory negligence would we assign? PCSO's responsibilities specifically exclude so called "high risk tasks" that regular Police Officers have to perform. Can you imagine what may have been the outcome if one of PCSO's had tried to intervene and been seriously injured or worse? Do people think the PCSO's would be insured for that eventuality? Going off on a dangerous jaunt of their own? Specifically ignoring safety procedures intended to keep them safe? I don't think so. However much people might like to point fingers at the PCSO's to level blame - that's not where the blame (if there is to be any blame) lies. This was nothing but a tragic accident. Or you you really need to find blame, then why not perform a root cause analysis. Or just go back to basics - I'm sure we all can remember our "Domino Theory". PCSO's are NOT the "emergency" services. However much the public like to think they are, and could or would or should intervene in an emergency - they have been set limits to their authority, limits to the levels of risk they should expose themselves to and limits to their responsibility. We might not like it when something like this happens - but that's the way it is. As to the question: We should not be granting exemptions. However, in my opinion this is precisely why the UK has argued (and won) the case for SFAIRP. Simply becasue we inhabit the real world. There are instances where the working environment cannot be risk free, only ALARP. My sermon over - I'm off for a coffee. :-)

Posted By Ste Germski In my personal opinion, emergency services are always (well, very much always) going to be in a position were high risk is always going to be present as that is what they are normally always called out to. This could be were a police officer who has been called to a domestic violence call or a fire department has been called to put a fire out in a house, and, go into the burning house to rescue trapped children. That is what these fantastic people, who are put through very rigorous training, are supposed to do.If we take away that responsibility from these highly trained people then society would be in dire straights, as human compassion in this country is quite low. No-one would help no-one. I would like to ask Mr Rich-T that if he had children that were in serious trouble in water would he not expect people to rescue them if they were capable to do so, this would take a very quick dynamic risk assessment by that person on the waters edge to make as Steve-B- suggests. In cases like that I would weigh up what is more important: my job or a childs life. you guess which I would choose.

Posted By Rich T I'm not going to respond to the question posed about what I might expect. What I might expect is irrelevant. The question posed was should there be an exemption - my answer was no. All current H&S principles - if competently applied - should be more than sufficient. It's the public expectation that needs to be managed, as well as the sensible application of the laws we already have.

Posted By Colin Reeves Thats a bit harsh - the PCSOs were instructed not to go in. The problem lies further up the line - lack of sufficient training, fear of prosecution if anything MAY go wrong etc. The problem is at the managerial level, not the poor people on the front line Colin